Associate Software Engineer
About the role
KAYAK, part of Booking Holdings (NASDAQ: BKNG), is a leading travel search engine. With billions of queries across our platforms, we help people find their perfect flight, stay, rental car and vacation package. We're also transforming business travel with a new corporate travel solution, KAYAK for Business. As an employee of KAYAK, you will be part of a travel company that operates a portfolio of global metasearch brands including momondo, Cheapflights and HotelsCombined, among others.
We're looking for a curious, collaborative Associate Front End Software Engineer to join our Cars Meta UI team — the group responsible for the Cars search experience used by millions of travelers every day. This is a role where you'll grow quickly, contribute meaningfully from day one, and be supported by a team that values learning, quality, and working well together. This role is required to work from either our Cambridge or Concord, MA office 3 days per week.
Responsibilities
- Deliver well-scoped front-end features for KAYAK's Cars search vertical that reach millions of travelers daily, working alongside senior engineers who will support your growth
- Implement clean, maintainable React and TypeScript code that meets the team's quality standards
- Collaborate with product managers, designers, and backend engineers to translate clearly defined requirements into polished, user-facing experiences across web and mobile
- Participate in code reviews — both receiving and providing constructive feedback
- Write unit, integration, and end-to-end tests to ensure reliability and prevent regressions
- Leverage AI coding tools (such as Claude Code) to improve your development velocity and code quality, in line with the team's engineering practices
- Engage actively in agile ceremonies — sprint planning, standups, and retrospectives — contributing ideas and flagging blockers to keep delivery on track
Requirements
- A degree or equivalent practical experience in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related technical field — or a portfolio of work that demonstrates the same foundational skills
- Foundational proficiency in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, with exposure to TypeScript preferred
- Hands-on experience with React or a comparable modern UI framework
- Familiarity with version control using Git and comfort contributing to a shared, collaborative codebase
- An ability to work with AI coding tools to improve development velocity and code quality, in line with the team's engineering practices
- Clear communication skills, a collaborative mindset, and openness to giving and receiving feedback through code reviews and agile ceremonies
- The capacity to thrive in a hybrid working model, including the ability to attend the Cambridge or Concord office at least 3 days per week
Benefits
- Work from (almost) anywhere for up to 20 days per year
- Focus on mental health and well-being:
- Company-paid therapy sessions through SpringHealth
- Company-paid subscription to HeadSpace
- Company-wide week off a year – the whole team fully recharges (and returns without a pile-up of work!)
- No meeting Fridays
- Paid parental leave
- Generous paid vacation + time off for your birthday
- Paid volunteer time
- Focus on your career growth:
- Development Dollars
- Leadership development
- Access to thousands of on-demand e-learnings
- Travel Discounts
- Employee Resource Groups
- Competitive retirement and health plans
- Free lunch 2 days per week
- Fun quarterly events such as boat trips, arcades, ski trips, Thursday happy hours, and more
Pay
The range for this Massachusetts-based role is $95,000 - $105,000, not inclusive of annual bonus and recurring RSU grants. We offer a competitive base salary and benefits including: health benefits; flexible spending account; retirement benefits; life insurance; paid time off (including PTO, paid sick leave, medical leave, bereavement leave, floating holidays and paid holidays); and parental leave benefits.